My ASE Talk January 10th 2019 – How to Teach Problem Solving in Science (with added Bar-Models!)

I have planned the outline of my ASE Annual Conference talk (Thursday 12.00). It may develop a little, but the … More

Learning Intentions

I have been worrying about Learning Intentions for a quarter of a century. Occasionally I discreetly ask someone I trust … More

Why Bar-Model Works #1: Dual Coding

I have been using bar-model incidentally in my year 11 revision groups for a couple of months now. I usually … More

Using Visual Representations to Help Solve Abstract Physics Problems

By year 6, pupils are skilled mathematical problem solvers. They can solve multi-step questions involving abstract concepts. This sounds like … More

But where is the cognitive science and the knowledge?

I’ve just received an email from TES advertising a book they are publishing titled: tes guide to STEM.I was hoping … More

A Residue of Physics

Six months ago, I was helping English trainees write a knowledge organiser for The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and … More

What are the Cognitive Loads of reading and how can we reduce them?

Reading is a physics problem that doesn’t receive much attention in class. I think it should. Science professionals read a … More

Integrating Questions and Diagrams to Reduce Cognitive Load for Novice Physicists

I think this will be the last of my problem-solving blogs for a while – it’s a little one about … More

Using Worked Examples to Reduce Cognitive Load in Physics

Learning how to solve problems is the key to becoming a physicist (here and here). The problem with problem solving is … More

How to Teach Problems…

Physics is all about the problems. In my last post, I picked apart the knowledge I needed to solve this … More